Beijing City Tongzhou District Detention Center

Located located in the eastern suburbs of Beijing and facing Liangshui River, Beijing Tongzhou District Detention Center is 38 kilometers away from the central area of Beijing and covering an area of 126 mu. Tongzhou Detention Center has 80 detention cells. It is mainly to detain various criminal suspects or short-term convicts. The persecution methods used toward Falun Gong practitioner in the center include: beatings, insults, wearing handcuffs or shackles, sitting on iron chairs (torture), brutal force-feeding, and wearing “restraint belts” (torture). The police often directed inmates to abuse Falun Gong practitioners.

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Featured Prisoner of Conscience

Popular folk musician Mr. Yu Zhou was killed in Beijing by Chinese police under the pretext of ensuring “stability for the Olympics.”

On his way back from his concert performance on the night of January 26^th, 2008, Yu Zhou and his wife were driving back home and on the way were kidnapped by police to Tongzhou Detention Center. 

And on Chinese New Year Eve, Yu Zhou was persecuted to death at age of 42 after 11 days in detention. His death was covered by the New York Times, Associated Press, and numerous international press. The U.S. Department of State, U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Freedom House and Amnesty International also reported on his passing. Yu’s death is memorialized on a dedicated Wikipedia page.